Here we are again folks, thank you for continuing to read my blogs. In this one, I would like to try to educate some of my readers as to what some agents say or claim on their media to make you think that they are the top in their class.

I will not name any companies or websites but I think you will recognise enough of them from what I reveal.​

My first myth buster is the online comparison platforms that claim to have the best estate agent in your area. If you put in your postcode, they will show you which agents are at the top of their game and therefore the best ones in your area should you be looking to sell your property. There are a few of these online platforms and they all work in the same way. The estate agent has to pay (quite a lot) money to go on these platforms. ONLY agents that pay end up being represented on these platforms, not all the agents in your area. If an agent decides that he doesn’t want the added expense of going on one of these platforms in order to keep their cost down for you as a client, they are not represented. How can the online platforms possibly claim then that they have the best estate agent in your area for you if there are a lot of agents that will not pay to go on them?

Next myth to be busted is very similar to the first. There are a few online companies that also say that they have personally checked the estate agents in your area and can now let you know which ones won awards for best service etc; some agents then claim that “they have been independently selected as the best estate agent in their area”, again, where is the evidence to back this up? Who were they judged against? Who were they judged by? How much did they pay to join that scheme? Was this a level playing field with ALL the other agents in their area included? If not, why are they allowed to claim to be the best? Maybe they should rephrase it to say ”We are the best of a small selection of estate agents in this area” but of course this doesn’t quite sell them in the best possible light but at least it would be more honest.

Another myth, those “Easy Move” “Smooth Move” “Assisted Move” schemes that say that they make your moving experience much easier and smoother than if you tried to do it all yourself the traditional way. This simply is not the case. The scheme companies again only use the local estate agents in your area that are prepared to pay them part of their potential fee for selling your house. Again, this does not mean that you will be given the best estate agent in your area just that an agent that is happy to give away 25% or more of their fee to the scheme organisers. Does this mean you get the best agent at the best value for you? I think may be not !! My advice is that if you are looking at buying a new build house, you are in a much stronger position to have sold your property privately first or at least be under offer to a buyer. If you are in this situation you are classed as a proceedable buyer and you will be in a much stronger position to negotiate a more favourable purchase price instead of being held hostage by what is essentially “Part Exchange” companies. Trust me when I say that if you use one of these schemes there are many strings attached that you may not see at first glance.

I recently had a case where a really lovely lady (who is now a good friend of mine) was looking to move, she decided to downsize and went for a new build property. As she was dealing with the developer (and an assisted move company), she was pressurised to use one of the agents that was paying away a proportion of their fee to the scheme operator. After a sale was agreed, below my valuation, the process began. Half way through, the buyer decided to reduce their offer by a substantial amount. This lady felt pulled in all different directions by the scheme operator whose only interest was getting paid by the developer, until in the end, she decided to use her life savings to buy the property outright without using her previous home in the deal, (this is very rare that people have enough funds to do this), thus breaking the chain. I was eventually instructed about three months after this fiasco started and sold her semi-detached property for £60,000 more than she would have got if she had carried on with the assisted house buying scheme.

I will end this blog by saying this, please check that if your agent claims to be the best, ask them if they have had to pay for this privilege? If you are using an assisted move scheme, is your agent paying to be on the list of agents that you have to choose from?​

Remember, GOOD estate agents should never need to buy/pay for an accolade, www.allagents.co.uk is a website that genuine customers leave their honest opinion on agents in your area. Trust others that have been in your position before you believe the HYPE.

Happy New Year to you all, I hope that you all had a good one. January has started with a bang as did the year before, but I think this one is rainier than last. I am looking forward to spring with longer days, drier days and hopefully sunnier ones too.

Spring always makes everything seem better, gives you time in the garden, makes you rethink what it is that you want to do for the rest of the year and opens new possibilities. One of those possibilities might be to move to a new house or it might be to do a makeover on your current property or the garden. Whatever it is that you decide to do, spring is normally the time to get started.

I have decided to start this year by trying to lose some weight. Yes, I know it is a cliché, but nevertheless it helps to have goals and mine is to lose weight ready for my impending wedding. Now there are plenty of ways to do this, weight watchers, calorie counting, this diet, that diet and every other diet that you can possibly imagine in-between them. No matter how you look at it, the only way to lose weight is the good old-fashioned way, eat less and move more, as the old phrase goes, 80% kitchen 20% gym.

Now you may be thinking what is he going on about? But stay with me on this, if hundreds of different people tell you that their way to lose weight is the best way and you try them all but still find no success then where are you but back at the beginning, frustrated and unhappy that you have been duped by something that you probably already knew to be too good to be true.

Now let’s equate this metaphor to you and your choice of estate agent. At this moment, there seems to be several high street agents out there that are intent on trying to convince you of many and various other things. Some have fancy strap lines claiming to be the best or even better than best, some are clinging to new ideas like riding on the green band wagon, some have fancy coffee bars or champagne receptions (who doesn’t like champagne) and some agents like to copy the things that made other agents successful and claim that they are the original (even though we all know that they are not).

Wouldn’t it just be simpler to stick with tried and tested methods by the best agent for your needs? Cross Keys Estates are the number 1 award winning “Best Estate Agent” in Plymouth for the fourth year on the trot, that means we were number one in Plymouth for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

I think the reason Cross Keys Estates are so successful is down to the fact that we always stick to the basics and do them at 100%. Customer service has always been at the heart of what we do, no fancy gimmicks, no over valuing, no champagne receptions or coffee stations just keep it simple, honest valuing, fair fees, great customer service, a team of dedicated reliable staff that actually care about doing a good job for you which makes Cross Keys Estates the name you can trust.

I hope that this blog doesn’t come across as indulgent or bragging too much but sometimes it isn’t enough to just tell people that you are the best, sometimes you must shout about and make sure that the message gets through. Please, even if nothing else, remember this, if it seems too good to be true then maybe you ARE being duped!!!

I love Christmas and always have done. Normally I go over the top and try to make everything perfect at home and at work. I always think back to when I was growing up, my mum and dad would do absolutely everything to make sure we always enjoyed the festive season.

It sounds idyllic but the house was always decorated to within an inch of its life, food was plentiful and there was always lots of presents under the tree (I still believe that Santa had a lot to do with the presents though), most of all the house was always filled with love.

I know that not everyone has such a fantastic time and I am fully aware that for some people, Christmas can be very difficult for many, many reasons. Covid-19 and especially this newer Omicron variant have certainly played a big part in this year’s celebrations.

It seems strange to think that taking lateral flow tests or going for a PCR test are now part of our daily routines. I have friends and family affected by these things like my dad, who has just had an operation, so has had to be careful not to get any form of illness especially Covid, or his operation would have been cancelled.

Another friend needs to see a family member in a care home and has to ensure that he is safe, so he takes a flow test every day. We recently had a party at our house for a select few friends, we asked all of the guests to take a lateral flow test prior to coming to ensure that the event could take place with a real sense of security. 

I managed to do most of my Christmas shopping online this year, not as a preference but as a precaution. I had to go in to the city just once in the build up to Christmas and I will admit it was not a pleasant experience, it felt suffocating and isolating having to wear face masks and not being able to read people’s expressions as their faces were covered, it also felt uncomfortable to see some people not wearing masks (I know that there are some people that are exempt), but without wearing their lanyard or badge to show this, it caused a sense of worry.

When you hear that the Queen has cancelled her family Christmas celebrations you have to ask whether this virus will ever let us have a normal life again?

Going in to 2022 feels like going in to the unknown again. Will pubs and clubs be forced to close over the New Year celebrations? Will sporting events have to be held behind closed doors? Will theatres and concerts have to be cancelled or rescheduled (yet again)? The biggest question that is worrying everyone is will we need to go into another lockdown? 

The housing market has seen a bit of a boom during these Covid days, as home owners are now looking for bigger and better homes to live and to work in. Houses are being snapped up as soon as they come on the market and rental properties are in the highest demand for a decade.

Interest rates have been at their lowest for a long, long time, even with the quarter percent rate rise, borrowing is still cheap. Combine this with the fact that most people have stated that this year they have not spent nearly as much on Christmas, holidays, clothes, concerts or anything else as they normally would have, makes me wonder if we might see another New Year house buying boom.

At Cross Keys Estates, we introduced a new customer portal called PropertyFile. This is a clear online window for a seller to see what marketing has been done for their property and what viewings have been booked, as well as what the feedback from these viewings was.

If you are a landlord, this portal will show you all actions that are related to your rental property such as any maintenance issues, inspection reports, viewings, feedback, marketing and what offers to rent have come in. In short, this portal gives you direct access to see what your agent is doing for you and has already proved hugely popular with our existing clients.

So far over the last four years, Cross Keys Estates have seen an increase in the levels of business for the first quarter of each year, but this year we have also seen the closure of several well known and established estate agents. These closures could be due to the increased pressure from the online agents and this has also resulted in agents having to lower their fees whilst the running cost for estate agents have increased year on year.

I go back to my previous comment about going in to 2022 as entering the unknown; Cross Keys Estates finish their second decade as a leading force in Plymouth’s housing market. I am confident that if you decide that this is the year that you move, you could not be in better hands than that of the award winning Cross Keys team.